To whom shall we listen? Whom believe? It would take a hundred pages,
and more, to relate all the different rumours which have circulated
to-day, the 4th of April, the second day of the horrible straggle. Let
us hastily note down the most persistent of these assertions; later I
will put some order into this pell-mell of news.
All through the night the drums beat to arms in every quarter of the
town. Companies assembled rapidly, and directed their way towards the
Place Vendôme or the Porte Maillot, shouting, “_A Versailles!_” Since
five this morning, General Bergeret has occupied the Rond-Point of
Courbevoie. This position has been evacuated by the troops of the
Assembly. How was this? Were the Federals not beaten yesterday?
(One thing goes against General Bergeret in the opinion of his troops:
he drives to battle in a carriage.)
He has formed his troops into columns. No less than sixty thousand men
are under his orders; two batteries of seven guns support the infantry;
omnibuses follow, filled with provisions. They march towards the Mont
Valérien; after having taken the fort, they will march on Versailles by
Rueil and Nanterre.[34] After they have taken the Mont Valérien! there
is not a moment’s doubt about the success of the enterprise. “We were
assured,” said a Federal general to me, “that the fort would open its
doors at the first sight of us.” But they counted without General
Cholleton, who commands the fortress. The advance-guard of the Federals
is received by a formidable discharge of shot and shells. Panic! Cries
of rage! A regular rout to the words, “We are betrayed!”[35] The army
of the Commune is divided into two fragments: one—scarcely three
battalions strong—flies in the direction of Versailles, the other
regains Paris with praiseworthy precipitation. Must the Parisian
combatants be accused of cowardice for this flight? No! They were
surprised; had never expected such a reception from Mont Valérien; had
they been warned, they would have held out better. After all, there was
more fright than harm done in the affair; the huge fortress could have
annihilated the Communists, and it was satisfied with dispersing them.
But what has become of the three battalions that passed Mont Valérien?
Bravely they went forward.
In the meantime another movement was being made upon Versailles by
Meudon and Clamart. A small number of battalions had marched out during
the night, and are massed under cover of the forts of Issy and Vanves.
They have managed to establish a battery of a few guns on a wooded
eminence, at the foot of the glacis of Fort. Issy, and their pieces are
firing upon the batteries of the Versailles troops at Meudon, which are
answering them furiously. It is a duel of artillery, as in the time—the
good time, alas!—of the Prussians.
Up to this moment the information is tolerably clear; probable even,
and one is able to come to some idea of the respective positions of the
belligerents. But towards two o’clock in the afternoon all the reports
get confused and contradictory.
An estafette, who has come from the Porte Maillot, cried to a group
formed on the place of the New Opera-house, “We are victorious!
Flourens has entered Versailles at the head of forty thousand men. A
hundred deputies have been taken. Thiers is a prisoner.”
Elsewhere it is said that in the rout of that morning, at the foot of
Mont Valérien, Flourens had disappeared. And where could he have found
the forty thousand men to lead them to Versailles?
At the same time a rumour spreads that General Bergeret has been
grievously wounded by a shell. “Pure exaggeration!” some one answers.
“The General has only had two horses killed under him.”
Before him, rather, since he drives to battle. What appears most
certain of all is that there is furious fighting going on between
Sèvres and Meudon. I hear it said that the 118th of the line have
turned the butts of their guns into the air, and that the Parisians
have taken twelve mitrailleuses from the Versailles troops.
There is fighting, too, at Châtillon. The Federals have won great
advantages. Nevertheless an individual who went out that side to
investigate, announces that he saw three battalions return with very
little air of triumph, and that other battalions, forming the reserve,
had refused to march.
A shower of contradictions, in which the news for the most part has no
other source than the opinion and desire of the person who brings it.
It is by the result alone that we can appreciate what is passed. At one
moment I give up trying to get information as a bad job, but I begin
questioning again in spite of myself; the desire to know is even
stronger than the very strong certainty that I shall be able to learn
nothing.
I turn to the Champs Elysées. The cannon is roaring; ambulance waggons
descend the Avenue, and stop before the Palais de l’Industrie; over the
way Punch is making his audience roar with laughter as usual. Oh! the
miserable times! The horrible fratricidal struggle! May those who were
its cause be accursed for ever!
While some are killing and others dying, the members of the Commune are
rendering decrees, and the walls are white with official proclamations.
“Messieurs Thiers, Favre, Picard, Dufaure, Simon and Pothuan are
impeached; their property will be seized and sequestrated until they
deliver themselves up to public justice.”
This impeachment and sequestration, will it bring back husbands to the
widows and fathers to the orphans?
“The Commune of Paris adopts the families of citizens who have fallen
or may fall in opposing the criminal aggression of the Royalists,
directed against Paris and against the French republic.”
Infinitely better than adopting the orphans would be to save the
fathers from death. Oh, these absurd decrees! You separate the Church
from the State; you suppress the budget of public worship; you
confiscate the property of the clergy. A pretty time to think about
such acts! What is necessary, what is indispensable, is to restore
quiet, to avoid massacres, and to stifle hatred. That you will not
decree. No! no! That which is now happening you have desired, and you
still desire it; you have profited by the provocations you have
received to bring about the most frightful conflict which the history
of unfortunate France records; and you will persevere, and in order to
revive the fainting courage of those whom you have devoted to
inevitable defeat and death, you bring into action all the hypocrisy
with which you have charged your enemies!
“Bergeret and Flourens have joined their forces; they are marching on
Versailles. Success is certain!”
You cause this announcement to be placarded in the street—false news,
is it not? But men can only be led to their ruin by being deceived. You
add:
“The fire of the army of Versailles has not occasioned us any
appreciable loss.”
Ah! As to this let us ask the women who await at the gates of the city
the return of your soldiers, and crowd sobbing round the bloody
litters!